


i couldn't hide from the thunder

by silverscream



Category: The Last Kingdom (TV)
Genre: AU, F/M, Fix It Fic, Fluff, Gen, I haven't written in forever, if she can be a Mercian warrior queen then she can also run off with the love of her life, short thingie, willfully ignoring canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-01
Updated: 2018-05-01
Packaged: 2019-04-30 19:25:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 792
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14503854
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/silverscream/pseuds/silverscream
Summary: Æthelflæd and Erik, in bits and pieces





	i couldn't hide from the thunder

**Author's Note:**

> let's just ignore the season finale, shall we.
> 
> title from Florence + the Machine's song, "Sky Full of Song"

"You are precious"

"To _what_? Not to Wessex, not anymore, not after the price they have paid in silver, and will no doubt pay in blood in the months to come!

Not to Mercia, not after what I did to my husband. And not for your Danes, not since my price was paid, and your army is now secured."

  
"To _me_."

  
She stops, words caught in a sob in the back of her throat. And then the cold grips her truly, goose pimples rising on her bare arms in the late autumn night, her skin bloodied, and kirtle torn, and - _your skin is pale, show me_ \- she is no longer pale, pristine, _but_ -

Warm hands tilt her face upwards, callused fingers feather-light on her cheeks, her jaw, her neck. His eyes bore into her soul, bright and desperate and tender, and he whispers, rough and choked,

"You are precious to me. Regardless of your price, regardless of your deeds, lady," his forehead touches hers, and her vision clouds. Erik is so close she can barely see him clearly, but she is wrought to look away; she would not, even for all the silver and gold in her father's England.

She has seen Uhtred hold his son so, foreheads linked; and his wife as well, when he left with her father's men to war, she had thought it peculiar, if sweet, but now-

Now she _breaks_ , the sob in her throat goes free, Æthelflæd lets her back curl and her hands grip Erik's arms, her nails dig into his skin - she feels it break, and she falls into him, pulls close and pushes closer, nose crushed into his cheek, knees bruised and inching around his.

She weeps bitterly, from deep within, and grips him harder than it is maybe kind, but he does not seem to mind, not at all, as he holds her fast and whispers against her mouth, his voice a hoarse, terrible thing; words she does not understand, but that sneak into her soul, taking root.

  
It's the hardest she's cried since her wedding night, but - then it had felt like damnation, and now it feels like healing.

With each sob, Æthelflæd feels lighter, her heart cleaner and her burdens easier. She thinks of her father, how old he'd looked from across the field, thinks of the knife his spy had gifted her - " _martyrdom for Wessex, lady, a most high honour"_ \- and cries. She thinks of Æthelred, his gilded edges and rotten insides, the pain as his sigil ring bit into her cheek, weaker though than the shame at being struck in front of three dozen lords, half of England's nobility privy to the sham that was her marriage.

The knife still rests in the folds of her dress, bloody like the rest of her, having cut men and killed them, maybe; but the sin refuses to cling to her skin, _murderer, you shall be put to death_ , and it fails to stick to her skin, glides off her as she cries until she can cry no more.

  
Still, Erik holds her, and he is close enough that they share breath. She touches his face, weathered and scarred and handsome, his cheek unshaved and his blue eyes half-mad.

"Only to you," she croaks, her voice seeming to have left her, and it should have been a bitter truth, she thinks numbly - that a daughter of Wessex, a lady of Mercia, should find herself worth only so much, that she should only have worth for one man - but it is freeing, instead.

Freeing unlike anything she has ever felt, for it is Æthelfæd who has worth, Æthelfæd who is precious, Æthelfæd who is loved by those wild eyes and scarred hands, and so she smiles until her cheeks hurt.

" _Only to you, Erik."_

It feels like an oath, and like salvation, as his arms come around her, swallowing her whole. There is not an inch of her that doesn't touch him, bare knees wrapped around him where he kneels to hold her, arms bound tightly around his back, and she's buried her face into his neck, where skin disappears under his leather armour and chainmail.

Æthelfæd drifts off to the sound his breathing, and to the soft caress of his fingers on her length of her spine, carding slowly through her hair. She has eloped with a soulless pagan, a voice whispers in her head, sounding like her husband, her father, or maybe a priest, and it tries to be reproachful, to shame her for her lack of shame, as it were, but it is so very hard to give half a damn for it, when she is free, and content - warmed by a strong heartbeat and the crisp night air.

 

 


End file.
